Nvidia Launches A Value 3D Chip

Two months after introducing its latest high-end graphics processor, the GeForce2 GTS, Nvidia today unveiled a chip designed for the mainstream home and business markets. The GeForce2 MX brings performance at the level of last year's star, the GeForce 256 SDR, down to a starting retail price of about US$120.

With the GeForce2 MX, Nvidia is making its most serious move into the mainstream home and business markets to date, and it has already announced deals with NEC and Fujitsu Siemens to have the chip integrated into those companies' PCs. Important features for business-oriented users include dual-monitor and digital flat-panel support. Nvidia's new TwinView dual-monitor feature pushes resolutions up to 2048 x 1536 at 60Hz on the primary display and 1600 x 1200 at 100Hz on the second. Nvidia is also introducing a feature called Digital Vibrance Control, which is designed to make colors more brillant in 2D applications, 3D games, and video.

In terms of performance, the MX includes most of the generational innovations of the GeForce2 GTS. The 175MHz processor features two pixel pipelines (compared to the GTS's four), both with dual texturing. This provides 700 megatexels of texture-rendering power, which places it right between the GeForce 256 (480 megatexels) and the GeForce2 GTS (1600 megatexels).

One of the steps Nvidia has taken to keep down the MX's price, however, is to pair it with the slower memory architecture of the GeForce SDR. With the 128-bit memory bus running at 166MHz, the MX has exactly the same memory bandwidth as the GeForce 256 SDR. Memory bandwidth, the speed of the critical path feeding the graphics processor with texture data, is a key factor in determining performance in the current generation of graphics cards.

The lower-powered MX design will allow Nvidia to use the chip for new applications. The MX generates only four watts of heat - half the level generated by the GTS and one-quarter the level generated by the GeForce 256 - making it a natural candidate for notebooks. Nvidia is confident that the chip won't even need a heatsink in desktop systems. The GeForce2 MX is also the first Nvidia component to natively support Macintosh color formats. Nvidia representatives asserted that the company is not planning on introducing a Mac product without Apple's backing, but that native hardware and software support is a necessary first step towards that market.